June Newton, alias Alice Springs

The exhibition ‘Alice Springs. Retrospective’ opens at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin on June 2, 2023. Comprising more than 200 photographs, the showcase – which is on view until November 19, 2023 – commemorates the 100th birthday of June Newton, aka Alice Springs.

While the Foundation’s previous Alice Springs exhibitions (in 2010 and 2016) were more comprehensive, this retrospective includes numerous works that have never been shown before. Extensive research into the HNF’s archives – and particularly into the holdings that were recently transferred from the Newtons’ shared apartment in Monaco – has opened up new insights into the late artist’s oeuvre. Many of these (at times spectacular) discoveries are now presented for the first time as vintage or exhibition prints.

June Newton worked under the pseudonym of Alice Springs from the early 1970s onwards, with a special focus on portraiture. Her forays into photography began with a bout of influenza suffered by Helmut Newton while the couple were living in Paris in 1970: the Australian theatre actress –whose prospects of finding acting work in France were limited due to the language barrier – asked her husband to show her how to handle the camera and light meter, so she could photograph an advert for the French cigarette brand ‘Gitanes’ on his behalf. Her portrait of a smoking model jump-started her career – which, over the next several decades, yielded countless iconic images, publications and solo exhibitions.